


Let Me Bid You Farewell

by flowersforgraves



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:22:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowersforgraves/pseuds/flowersforgraves
Summary: After Mustafar, Kenobi spends some time meditating.





	Let Me Bid You Farewell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Wavesinger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Wavesinger/gifts).

> [Brothers in Arms - Mark Knopfler & Dire Straits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfmWvfU3dNw)

He loves -- loved? -- loves. He loves Anakin. He isn’t allowed to admit it out loud, but he does. Did. Does. 

Of course Obi-Wan has thought about this before. Releasing one’s emotions into the Force requires it. But he has never before felt this bone-deep sorrow.

He knows the root of it, knows it as intimately as -- more than -- a lover. Anakin on the sand is a visceral memory. Meat has a particular smell, one that Obi-Wan isn’t unfamiliar with; it is a battlefield smell, which he associates with the sharp tang of blood and the glint of scraped plasteel armor. 

That smell pervades every waking moment, and sleep provides no respite. When he closes his eyes he can hear the thundering of Mustafar’s roiling lava seas, deep vibrations he can feel in his ribcage. There’s grit in his mouth, in his beard, and no matter how he washes his mouth out or combs through his beard it doesn’t leave. 

Meditating doesn’t help as much as it should. Instead of clearing his mind, he only ends up trapped deep in the memory. Obi-Wan feels like an initiate again, his first clumsy forays into the Force on his own doing more harm than good. 

The low hum of his lightsaber feels wrong. Raising a blade against his brother unbalanced it somehow, he knows, even though there’s nothing physically wrong with it. Even though Anakin isn’t his brother anymore.

Obi-Wan stares across the Tattooine desert, faded brown and yellow tones with darker spots of farms and encampments in the distance. He’ll watch over little Luke, and he’ll keep meditating, but it won’t make a difference in the end. He knows that no matter what happens, he won’t live to see it.

No, he had sealed his own death warrant when he had first raised that blade against Anakin in anger.


End file.
